THE SECRET HEIRESS
By
Caroline Chessington, orphaned heiress and highly capable overseer of her Lancashire estate at Brampton, is fed up with fortune-hunting beaux and matchmaking relatives. So off she goes, up to London for the season with fussy older cousin Aurelia--determined to masquerade as a non-wealthy, middle-class, merely respectable spinster. And two suitors promptly appear: nobly born second-son Giles Kendal, who genuinely admires mysterious Caroline for her wit and sense (they meet at the museum); and spendthrift Adrian Bradford, a notorious fortune-hunter who doesn't seem to know about Miss Chessington's secret wealth. . . but really does. Giles' well-meaning attempts to warn Caroline about Adrian merely infuriate her, of course--till she learns the Truth, flees from London in humiliation (meeting subplot-ingenue Arabella along the way), but finally winds up in Giles' manly arms. A pleasant yet terribly ordinary Regency overall--from the author of Belle of Bath.